We had a lot of fun while learning a lot during the first ever Perfect Pitch competition at PADT. This is an event where startup mentors get up and pitch the same fictitious company. During that process, we learned a few things that are useful for anyone trying to fundraise for a startup or those who mentor companies. “Pitching a startup well: What I learned while competing for the Unicorn Cup” highlights those lessons.

October is not just the long awaited end of high temperatures in Arizona, it is also Manufacturing Month. As we start to have lunch outside again, it is a good time for those of us involved in making stuff to reflect on our recent successes and on what we can do to make things even better. Find some interesting statistics and suggestions on next steps in “Manufacturing Month in Arizona – Looking Strong“

The Cloud, everyone talks about it but have you really taken the time to see where it fits in to physical product development, especially when dealing with the Internet of Things. I take a look from PADT’s perspective in: “The Cloud, the other enabler for what is next“

Rey Chu, one of PADT’s owners and our head of Manufacturing Technologies, is featured in the 2017 issue of AZ Business Leaders with his article “How 3D Printing is Changing Manufacturing” It is a great overview of 3D printing and how it is impacting the way we make things.

What do you get when you combine a motivated student leader, enthusiastic classmates, a worldwide online community, and the latest 3D Printing technology from Stratasys? You give children around the world a cool way to hold things again. That is what happened when high school student Rahul Jayaraman of Basis Chandler decided to take part in a project called Enabling The Future. They describe themselves as “A global network of passionate volunteers using 3D Printing to give the world a ‘helping hand'” by designing a wide variety of prosthetic hands for kids that can be printed and assembled by volunteers.

Local news station, KSAZ FOX 10 Phoenix stopped by PADT while we were printing three hands in our Stratasys FORTUS 450 to interview Rahul and talk to us about the project. It gives a great summary:

3D Printing is a fantastic technology for one simple reason, it enables almost anyone to manufacture parts. All you need is a good design. And that is where the people at Enabling the Future come in. Check out their website to see some great examples of how their volunteer work changes so many lives. Have a box of tissue handy if you watch the videos…

This is how the project works. A leader like Rahul takes the initiative to sign up for the project. He then chooses which of the many designs he wants to make. For this first go around, he picked a general design from Thingiverse called the Raptor Reloaded. Next they needed the hardware you could not 3D Print – screws springs, velcro, and bits and pieces that hold the design together. For this they needed to raise $25 per hand so Rahul was given the opportunity to learn how to raise money, a very useful skill.

PADT’s Dhruv Bhate and the rest of our 3D Printing team worked with Rahul to get the design just right and then 3D Print the hands. That will be done this week and this weekend the next phase will take place. Rahul and a large number of his classmates from Basis Chandler will get together at the school this weekend to put thirty or so hands together. They will then box them up and another volunteer group, www.HandChallenge.com, will ship them to kids in the developing world that need them.

Here is a video from Tom Fergus from Fox10 showing a closeup of the hand in action:

We at PADT love projects like this because it is win-win-win. The students get a chance to run a complicated project by themselves, learning the skills they will need later in life to organize, manage, and finish a project. PADT wins because we can contribute to our chosen area of charity, STEM education, in a way that benefits others beyond a given school. And the big winners are the kids around the world that receive a new and cool way to grab hold of life.

We will have sample hands at our open house next Thursday: Nerdtoberfest as well as an update when we get feedback from the distribution of the hands.

My thought is that we have in two areas – we have stretched employees to the breaking point and we don’t set aside time for innovation. In this blog post I share why this hurts productivity in the long run and what we can do about it.

Nothing beats seeing a product we were part of hit the shelves, except seeing that product become a success. The Globalstar Spot3 project was even better because we were able to apply the full range of PADT’s capabilities to contribute to this success: Product Development, Simulation, and 3D Printing.

In “Fast-Forwarding Next-Generation Product Development” PADT’s Mike Landis outlines how we applied leading edge technology and a proven process to quickly develop Globalstar’s next-generation design, not just for performance but also for manufactuing. The article is a great overview of the service PADT has to offer and how we partner with customers to make their innovation work.

If you have a new generation of an existing product line, or a brand new product under development and want a better product to market faster, PADT is here to help with our design, simulation, 3D Printing, test, and manufacturing expertise. Just give us a call at 1-800-293-PADT or email info@paditnc.com.

NASA launched the OSIRIS-REx mission on September 8, 2016. Not only is this a cool mission to explore our solar system, but it’s a big deal because Arizona has a ton at stake in its success. “Arizona solidifies position as a leader in space technology” goes over what ASU, UofA and KinetX, Inc. contributed to this great project.

As 3D Printing makes it’s long awaited move from being dominated by prototyping to manufacturing production parts, companies need to consider a few key issues. In “Five Unique Considerations for 3D Printing Production Parts” I share what we have learned at PADT as we have helped customers make this transition.

The business world has changed. Things are more competitive and everyone you are trying to partner with is much busier and has more responsibility. In a world where most people are simply struggling to react, there is a way to set yourself or your company apart. “A competitive advantage, being proactive” looks at what we try to do here at PADT to make that difference.

After three years on the market and signs that sales were increasing year over year, we decided it was time to go through our popular training book “Introduction to the ANSYS Parametric

I’ll be honest, it was cool to see the book in print the first time, but seeing it on my iPad was just as cool.

Design Language (APDL)” and make some updates and reformat it so that it can be published as a Kindle e-book. The new Second Edition includes two additonal chapters: APDL Math and Using APDL with ANSYS Mechanical. The fact that we continue to sell more of these useful books is a sign that APDL is still a vibrant and well used language, and that others out there find power in its simplicity and depth.

This book started life as a class that PADT taught for many years. Then over time people asked if they could buy the notes. And then they asked for a real book. The bulk of the content came from Jeff Strain with input from most of our technical staff. Much of the editing and new content was done by Susanna Young and Eric Miller.

Here is the Description from Amazon.com:

The definitive guide to the ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL), the command language for the ANSYS Mechanical APDL product from ANSYS, Inc. PADT has converted their popular “Introduction to APDL” class into a guide so that users can teach themselves the APDL language at their own pace. Its 14 chapters include reference information, examples, tips and hints, and eight workshops. Topics covered include:

At only $75.00 it is an investment that will pay for itself quickly. Even if you are an ANSYS Mechanical user, you can still benefit from knowing APDL, allowing you to add code snippets to your models. We have put some images below and you can also learn more here or go straight to Amazon.com to purchase the paperback or Kindle versions.